Pattie Brewster, played by Amy Hoggart, is just looking for some friends and she's hoping that her Edinburgh audiences will provide. During the course of her hour-long show Brewster will explain to you how to make friends, will attempt to get to know you intimately and will hopefully become your new BFF. This show has come off the back of Hoggart's successful internet video ventures in which she takes on the personality of a strange young girl who has an inability to make friends. She uses a lot of visual aids and fun games and is an interesting new face at the Fringe this year.
As the audience shuffle in Brewster is shyly peeking out from behind her screen like a little girl. She creates this creepy, intense personality, using wide eyes and an over excited voice to capture the true essence of a girl who has more feline friends than human. Hoggart is a watchable performer and her videos add a nice structure to the proceedings. Her mockumentary-style section has a very Trigger Happy TV feel which is hilarious, as Brewster fearlessly offends and misunderstands her interview subjects. In fact, all her use of technology throughout the show is very slick and adds considerably to the comedic effect, such as using on-screen supertitles to part-narrate her action. She embraces and exaggerates her own weirdness which has the combined effect of alienating the audience before winning them right back again.
Although Hoggart is clearly a very funny writer, it seems as though her natural comedic side could be more prominent without the use of such a grating character. It's true that the premise of the show rests on the fact that Pattie Brewster is an unusual girl with some eccentric traits, but her character's childish way of expressing things begins to wear by the end of the show. It doesn't feel necessary that everything she says is half mumbled. Perhaps if this character was developed as part of a series of sketches it would have more impact; it would definitely be better digested in videos of a few minutes long rather than being right up in your face for a whole hour. It is clear why Hoggart's videos have been a success. Hopefully there is more to come from this quirky, young comedienne.
